Red Sparrow

by Jason Matthews

  The old man humored his intense young handler, and they reviewed their contingency plans for the biggest high-wire act in denied-area operations. Exfiltration. Smuggling someone to freedom. From inside Moscow, under hot pursuit, with family or with the mistress, curled tight in a car trunk or brazening it through passport control. After forty minutes MARBLE held up his hand. “Nathaniel, enough for tonight, I think. You are very thorough.” Nate blushed in self-conscious embarrassment and they said good night.

  =====

  Now MARBLE was safely home and Nate was pleased to read effusive praise from Headquarters for the secure and productive meeting series with the agent. A cable had characterized Nate’s reporting as “well received at the highest levels,” cablese for the White House and the NSC.

  Forsyth tapped him on the shoulder for a good job, and Gable bought him a beer. “All the kudos you’re getting, no one’s thinking about the agent,” said Gable. “It’s your responsibility never to forget him. You got that?”

  The glow faded with Nate’s pressing problem. Dominika. Where was the case going? What did her admission that she worked for the rezident mean? If there wasn’t some progress soon, there would be complaints from Headquarters.

  “Screw Headquarters,” said Gable, starting on another beer. “Just take it easy for a couple of weeks, bask in the glow of your recent scary-good performance, then we’ll decide what you can do next.”

  Nate knew Gable well enough by now. “You really mean, Get out of this chair and hit the street before I kick you out the front door, don’t you?” said Nate.

  “Yes, yes, in fact I do,” said Gable. “Go to the swimming pool. Find your SVR corporal. Bring her flowers. Tell her you were miserable without her, that you missed seeing her. Take her to dinner.”

  “To tell you the truth, Marty, I did sort of miss seeing her,” said Nate, looking down at the carpet. He looked back up at Gable.

  “Jesus wept,” said Gable, and walked out.

  CAVIAR TORTE

  Blend sautéed shallots, crème fraîche, and grated Neufchâtel cheese and pour mixture into a springform pan. Sprinkle with chopped boiled eggs. Spread a thin layer of small-gauge caviar (Ossetra or Sevruga) on top of torte and chill. Unmold and spread on blinis or toast points.

  14

  Marta conspired with Dominika in little ways. She helped her pad attendance and work logs to show activity, and together they talked out how Dominika could write contact reports that showed hopeful progress, while at the same time being sufficiently anodyne not to rouse the sleeping bear in the Center. She wrote of pleasant but inconclusive sessions with the American at a museum, a lunch, a coffee, veiled references to his almost languid unresponsiveness. “It makes him sound horrid,” said Dominika, “and it makes me sound horrible too. We’ll be two old maids, you and I!”

  “You think so?” said Marta, lighting a cigarette. “Perhaps we’ll be like the two girls buying sausages. The butcher has no change, so he gives them an extra sausage. ‘What are we going to do with the third sausage?’ whispers one girl. ‘Quiet,’ her friend says. ‘We’ll eat that one.’” Dominika started laughing.

  Volontov was constantly hovering, feeling the pressure from Moscow and passing it downhill. He saw the obvious friendship between the two women, the aging former Sparrow and her young friend. And Egorova was clearly abetted by Yelenova. Yelenova’s already chronic lack of respect and compliance was increasing and becoming more apparent daily.

  It was a stormy day with sheeting rain coming in waves from the south, from Estonia. Dominika was out of the embassy when Volontov called Marta into his office. Marta sat without being bidden, squared her shoulders. “You wanted to see me, Colonel?”

  Volontov looked at Marta without speaking. His eyes traveled from her legs to her face. Marta looked him in the eye. “What is it you wish, Colonel?” Marta repeated.

  “I have been noticing your close friendship with Corporal Egorova,” said Volontov. “You and she seem to be spending a fair amount of time together.”

  “Is there anything wrong with that, Colonel?” asked Marta. She lit a cigarette, lifted her head, and blew the smoke toward the ceiling.

  Volontov watched her like a farm boy. “What have you been saying to Egorova?”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question, Colonel,” said Marta. “We go out for a glass of wine, we talk about family, travel, food.”

  “What else do you talk about?” Volontov asked. “Do you speak about men, about boyfriends?” The light from the fluorescent tubes in his office reflected from the sheen of the lapels of his Bulgarian suit.

  “Excuse me, Colonel,” said Marta, “what is the reason for these personal questions?”

  “Sookin syn!” Volontov slapped his hand on his desk. “I don’t have to give you a reason,” he bellowed. “Whatever you have been saying to Egorova, I want it to stop. Your well-known cynical attitude and jaded views are affecting her. Her productivity has dropped. She is falling behind in her assigned work. Her written reports are unsatisfactory. Leave her alone. Or I will take measures.”

  Accustomed to and unaffected by the phlegmy bellows of Soviet officialdom, Marta calmly leaned forward and stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. His eyes flicked down to the opening in her blouse. She put her hands on the edge of his desk and leaned farther to give him an even better look. “Colonel,” Marta said, “I must tell you something. You are repulsive. It is you who should leave Egorova alone. Don’t sully her with your disgusting manner. She has done nothing wrong.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?” yelled Volontov. “You’re nothing but an overripe whore, blyadischa! I can have you sent home tonight, trussed up like the sow you are. You’ll be manning a regional travel office in Magnitogorsk, where you can check travel permits all day and suck toothless Metallurg hockey players all night.”

  “Ah, yes, Colonel, all the familiar threats,” said Marta. She knew this species of toad, this kind of coward. “But what about this threat, Colonel? I’ll go over your head. I’ll create so much trouble for you in Moscow that it will be you on your knees in Magnitogorsk. Vanya Egorov will not be pleased to hear that your rezidentura is a svalka, a trash heap, and your accomplishments are nonexistent. He will be quite interested to hear how you leer at his niece and dream of putting your face between her legs. Bastard. Mudak.”

  This was colossal insubordination. This was treason. Volontov stood behind his desk and screamed at Marta. “Pack your belongings. I want you out of here by tomorrow night. I don’t care how: train, boat, plane. If you’re not gone by tomorrow night—”

  “Zhopa! Asshole!” said Marta, who turned her back on Volontov and walked toward his door. Trembling with rage, Volontov tore open the desk drawer, scrabbled around in it, and brought out a small Makarov automatic, the pistol he’d had with him all his career. He had never fired it in the field, never fired it in anger. Now, with shaking hand, he racked the slide back to chamber a round. At the door, Marta heard the sound and turned. Volontov’s pistol was raised, pointing directly at her. “I’m not Dimitri Ustinov, Colonel Volontov. You and your kind cannot destroy every single thing you don’t control.” Marta’s heart was beating; she didn’t know if Volontov would pull the trigger.

  Ustinov? The murdered oligarch? Butchered in his penthouse, buckets of blood, rumored Mafia vendetta? Volontov had no idea what this bitch was talking about, but the 1950s-vintage Soviet vacuum tubes in his head heated up. His water-bug instincts told him there was something lurking under the surface, perhaps something very important. He lowered his pistol. Marta turned the knob on his office door and walked out. Colleagues were gathered in the hallway; they had heard the shouting.

  Inside his office, Volontov smoked a cigarette and tried to calm down. He reached for the secure, crème-colored telephone labeled VCh for vysokochastoty, high-frequency. “Get me Moscow,” he said to the operator. After a thirty-second wait he was speaking to First Deputy Director Egorov. Two minutes lat
er he had been given instructions. These included: Ignore what Yelenova had said to him, repeat it to absolutely no one, and do nothing more. Volontov was about to protest that this sort of insubordination would undermine his authority. Over the scratchy line, Egorov told him to pay attention.

  “Yest’ chelovek, yest’ problema. Nyet cheloveka, nyet problemy,” said Egorov. A chill ran through Volontov. He knew that one by heart. One of Comrade Stalin’s aphorisms: If there is a person, there is a problem. If there is no person, then there is no problem.

  =====

  Nate and Dominika sat on the couch in his apartment. Lights from the harbor filtered through the window and the bass note of a ship’s horn came from the darkness beyond the islands in the bay. A sweep team had checked Nate’s apartment so he could invite Dominika for dinner. Neither knew, at this stage, who had the operational advantage. Neither knew where his or her respective developmental efforts would lead. Neither fully understood the stakes of the Game. All either of them knew was that they looked forward to seeing each other. Nate’s little living room was dimly lit with two lamps. Music played softly, Beny Moré ballads.

  Nate had cooked for Dominika, vitello picatta, veal scaloppine with lemon caper sauce. Dominika had stood leaning against the kitchen table watching while Nate lightly sautéed the wafer-thin medallions of meat in oil and butter. She moved closer to the stove as he poured wine and lemon juice into the pan to deglaze the fond, added thin lemon slices and capers, then pieces of cold butter. He put the pieces of veal back into the pan to warm them. They ate dinner on the couch, the plates on their laps. Dominika finished her wine and poured herself another glass.

  They had picked up their relationship after the break of several weeks ago, had spent time together since then. On a chilly Sunday, walking around the old fortress, they had started the familiar argument.

  “You lived in Moscow for a year, for goodness’ sake,” Dominika said. “But you don’t know Russians. Your view is black-and-white. You haven’t learned anything.”

  Nate smiled and offered his hand to help her over a grassy parapet, part of the castle walls. Dominika did not take it and trudged up the mound on her own. “Look, nationalism is fine. You’ve got a lot to be proud of,” said Nate. “But the world is not populated with your enemies. Russia should concentrate on helping her own people.”

  “We do very well, thank you,” said Dominika.

  They continued squabbling in the apartment after dinner. “I’m just saying that Russia hasn’t fundamentally changed from the old days, that she is missing the great opportunities before her. That the familiar bad habits are all back.”

  “What bad habits?” asked Dominika. She was drying a plate at the sink.

  “Corruption, repression, imprisonment. Soviet behavior is the default, it’s strangling democracy in Russia.”

  “You almost seem pleased to repeat the list,” said Dominika. “I suppose there is none of that in America?”

  “Sure we have our problems, but we don’t let dissidents die in jail, or murder political opponents.” Nate saw Dominika’s face change. “There are people who value humanity, who believe that all humans have rights, it doesn’t matter what country they’re from. And then there are people who don’t seem to care about their fellow man, who have no conscience, like some of the people in the former Soviet Union, in the old KGB. Some of them never went away.”

  Dominika could not believe they were having this conversation. For the first part, it was insulting to sit here being lectured by this young American. For the second part, Dominika knew that much of what he said was correct, but to admit it would be unthinkable. “Now you’re an expert,” she said, putting the plate down and picking up another, “on the KGB.”

  “Well, I knew one or two of them,” said Nate.

  Dominika continued drying the plate without pausing. “You knew KGB men? Impossible. Who were they?” she asked. And what will you do if he tells you? she thought.

  “Nobody you would know. But in comparison I greatly prefer knowing SVR officers. They’re much nicer.” That grin again, deep purple.

  Dominika did not react, but looked at her watch and said it was getting late. Huffy. Nate helped her into her coat, pulling her hair free of the collar. Dominika felt his finger brush her neck as he did so. “Thank you for dinner, Nate,” she said. She had her temper in a box, just barely.

  “May I walk you home?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” said Dominika. She walked to the front door and turned, offering her hand, but he was right behind her and he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Good night,” she said, and went out into the hallway, her lips tingling.

  NATE’S VEAL PICATTA

  Pound small medallions of veal paper-thin. Season and quickly sauté in butter and oil until golden. Remove and cover. Deglaze pan with dry white wine and lemon juice, boil to reduce. Lower heat, add thin lemon slices, capers, and cold butter. Gently simmer to a thick reduction (do not bring back to a boil). Return medallions to sauce to warm.

  15

  Past midnight now, the Helsinki snow had given way to the rains of emergent spring, which spattered on the pavement, dripped off the bare limbs of the trees, and rattled against the windows. Nate tossed in his bed. Twelve blocks away, Dominika lay awake hearing the rain and felt the lingering tingle of Nate’s good-night kiss on her lips. She was glad she had saved him, and she would do it again, she decided.

  Thank God for Marta. Not only had her friend’s support helped her with the decision, but also Marta’s wry commentary on life had crystallized her thinking, especially about keeping a secret from the Service. Marta did not believe in blind devotion. She told Dominika not to be a tricoteuse, to be true to herself, to owe allegiance first to herself, then, if there was room, to Russia. Dominika tossed in her bed.

  Five blocks to the east, Marta Yelenova eased open her apartment door in the residence block reserved for Russian Embassy employees. Cooking smells of boiled beef and cabbage were heavy in the corridor and reminded her of apartment blocks in Moscow. She shook the rain off her overcoat and hung it on a hook next to the door.

  Her apartment was small, a single room with a separate kitchen nook, beyond which was the tiny bathroom. The apartment had been used by generations of Russian Embassy employees and was dingy and worn, the furniture scarred and wobbly. Marta stumbled as she took off her wet shoes. She giggled to herself. She was tipsy after a long night alone in a small café. At some point during the evening she had ordered pytt i panna, a popular Scandinavian hash of beef, onion, and potatoes. She had left the bar and walked home in the rain. It had been some time since her blowup with Volontov, and the expected recall to Moscow, the reprimands, the firing from the Service had not come. The rezident studiously ignored her, but absolutely nothing had happened.

  Marta saw that Dominika in the last days was trying to schedule more frequent operational meetings with Nathaniel, primarily because that was what kept Volontov happy, but also, Marta observed, because Dominika looked forward to contact with the young American. Volontov had called her into his office as well, and Dominika returned to her desk, giving Marta a wink. “He was very calm, almost apologetic,” said Dominika over wine after work. “He encouraged me to keep working, to try to pick up the pace if I could.”

  “I don’t trust that jellyfish,” said Marta. “My advice, Domi, is to keep telling them you’re working very diligently, progress is slow, but you’re encouraged by developments. They all want to report success to the Center, so Volontov will keep up a good face.” Later that night, walking home, she tipsily told Dominika that if either of them had any sense, they’d both defect. Scandalous.

  Marta went into her bedroom. She sat heavily on her bed, peeled off her damp clothes, and let them fall in a heap to the floor. She put on a short silk pajama shirt. It was from India, light beige, billowing, and embroidered with green and gold thread. Matching green knotted buttons ran from throat to hem. She stood i
n front of a wall mirror with its cracked corner and looked at herself. The shirt had been a present from a GRU general who had been posted to the Soviet Embassy in New Delhi. He had met Marta during the honey-trap operation against the Indian defense minister. They had had a torrid affair for eight weeks, but in the end he stopped it. Having the Queen Sparrow as a Moscow diversion was one thing, he said, but settling down with “someone like you” was another.

  Someone like me, Marta thought, looking at her reflection. She opened the nightshirt and looked at her naked body in the mirror. Several years past fifty and she was still holding together, she thought. A little more waistline, some lines around her eyes, but her breasts had not completely fallen, and, turning slightly and holding the material aside, she saw that her backside still had the swoop and curve that had been, in large part, responsible for making the young French intel officer in 1984 forget his duty and spend a month of Sundays in a Leningrad hotel room with her. She thought about him sometimes, for no reason.

  Marta padded barefoot into the kitchen to draw a glass of water. It would clear her head so she could sleep. She returned to the bedroom and felt an arm snake around her neck from behind. She had heard nothing. The man held tight against her throat. She grabbed his arm with both hands to relieve the pressure. The person behind her didn’t feel big; in fact, he felt somewhat thin. The breath on her neck was steady; he wasn’t scared. He did not overly tighten his grip on her throat—he was just holding her. Marta thought maybe a pervert, a molestation? She got ready to reach behind to twist his testicles off.

  It wasn’t until he had frog-marched her sideways to stand in front of the mirror that she knew this wasn’t a Finnish delivery boy with a wet spot on the front of his apron. She smelled ammonia and sweat. Then something else. A voice in her ear like a beetle walking across rice paper. One word in Russian. “Molchat.” Silence. In a horrified flash she knew. It was Them.